Time Warner is cutting costs in a scramble to boost profits and justify its rejection of a takeover bid by Rupert Murdoch. But as a $482 million “programming impairment” charge shows, cost cutting can be expensive.

The investment banker turned media mogul turned New York City mayor is heading back to run the company he founded. And as Bloomberg expands its news operation into magazines, politics, and more, his first order of business should be to buy CNN.

As many as 10% of HBO’s 30 million subscribers are “non-revenue generating.” A new report from Barclays Capital says converting half of those subscribers to paying ones would generate between $72 million and $144 million in cash.

On the company’s second-quarter earnings call, CEO Jeff Bewkes acknowledged that HBO GO has stiff competition in Netflix — and that the former will likely take a page from Netflix’s book in the future.

Uniting the Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox production studios would give Rupert Murdoch control over the two largest film and television catalogs ever assembled, creating a highly lucrative annuity and allowing for unprecedented sway over how content is made and sold across distribution platforms.

Jeff Bewkes doesn’t like big media mergers, but that doesn’t mean he won’t make a good deal, from Rupert Murdoch or another bidder. He’ll do whatever creates the most value for shareholders, and now that most likely means selling.